Darkness Visible
by X-parrot
Summary: Not just another day; not just another job. Nothing Ban and Ginji have seen before could prepare them for this, and never has success been more important.
1. I

"A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round  
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames  
No light, but rather darkness visible"   
Milton 

Darkness Visible  
X-parrot 

This is one way to break a man, to discover what he holds above himself, what he puts beyond his own worth, and tear it down, make it worthless, grind him to dust beneath the weight of its value. 

This is one way to salvation, to find a faith too strong to be shaken, to put your soul entirely in the keeping of what is unbreakable. 

It begins as all days begin, with sunrise, and the roar of morning traffic outside the car's windows, and a job. Ban has misgivings, but they're nebulous doubts, and he didn't sleep well last night, so they're easily dismissed as remnants of nightmares. And they need the money. It's like any other day. 

How far would you go for pride? 100 percent success rate (nearly); they can't fail with this retrieval. It's too simple, too pure. Her eyes are so sincere as she makes her request. 

"My sister." And neither of them can refuse. Ginji because he has no family, as far as his memory goes, and imagines something sacred. Ban because he has, grandmother by blood and sister and brother by choice, and there are bonds which shouldn't be torn. 

So it's problematic, when they locate her, and they know it's dangerous, but they have no choice but to succeed. Their pride as retrievers is on the line, and all the money her sister offered, and more than anything because they said they would. 

Her circumstances Ban wouldn't have expected Ginji to understand, but he forgets sometimes how fierce and merciless Mugenjou could be. He never could overestimate his partner, because Ginji will always manage to do what must be done, but sometimes he underestimates him. Ginji doesn't understand art or music or movies or literature, but when he looks at a person's heart and only sees the bright spots, it isn't because he's oblivious to the darkness. He's seen so much of it that he doesn't want to see more, unless he has to. 

But there were cults in the Infinite Castle, along with the clans and gangs and all the other shadows of real society. In some ways Volts might have been the greatest of them, for Raitei was more than emperor; the savior, though no one understood why, master of that uncertain reality, and as many fell to his personal...magnetism, as to the promise of safety he offered. Ginji would never have used that, however, wouldn't ever deliberately manipulate those who adored him. 

This leader isn't nearly as charismatic, but his lust for control is unslakeable, and he picks his followers carefully, targeting those who are lost, who feel left behind. Out of work, estranged, the sister was any easy mark, and now she's lost behind the white stone walls of that commune building, her voice added to their chants and her savings added to their coffers. When they emerge it's in pairs and trios, twins and triplets by their plain clothes and plain haircuts, inseparable, no individual remaining, and their loyalty to their place is absolute and uncompromised. 

A little online digging finds the one boy who did leave alone, at least in part, last year. They go to the hospital where he is now. Drugs, the specialists think. His father comes every day, sits by his bed and holds his limp hand and talks, and never gets an answer. 

"Unforgiveable," Ginji says, and one might as well have pushed a boulder off a cliff; that tone, that pronouncement, there is no reneging. They're going to get this sister back. And take this evil down in the doing. 

The place gets deliveries every other day, groceries and unmarked packages. Not hard, to borrow a couple uniforms and carry in a few innocuous boxes. The woman who answers the door could be someone's mother by the streak of gray in her hair and the smile lines around her mouth, if her expression weren't so empty. She echoes their good morning but doesn't answer Ginji's friendly chatter about the sunny weather. 

It would be simple enough to tap her on the head before she could call for help, but she might be a mother. Ban uses the jagan instead--for a moment she's looking past him, not into his eyes, and it's slipping like water off an oiled tarp, like falling and not hitting the floor. Then it catches, and she sees them out the door in the safety of her own mind, while they amble past the entryway into the corridors. 

Ban's fingers itch for a cigarette, the charge of the nicotine to counter the drain of the evil eye. And this time was...strange. Trickier than it should be. 

"Ban-chan?" Ginji murmurs, and Ban shrugs it off. "Nothing." 

The corridors are empty, he expected people but there's no one, no other footsteps on the square colorless tiles but their own. Every hall looks alike, just a little too narrow, the doors spaced a little too close together. They're all locked. If it were busier it would be like a hospital; empty, it's like a morgue, each door a drawer, holding place for a breathing corpse. 

"Ban-chan?" Ginji asks again, his voice echoing off the blank walls. His green vest is life in this dead place, and even the florescent lights can't wash out the yellow of his hair, but it's his eyes that bring Ban back to himself, dark with concern, and the hand on his arm. 

"Nothing." He shakes off the warmth of that contact. "I'm fine." But there's something wrong here. 

"To hell with it." Ban takes hold of a door handle, summons his strength and wrenches down, twisting the lock from its socket. The door swings open, to a room four meters by four, windowless, with only a narrow cot, a desk, a chair. The blankets on the cot aren't as smooth as they could be; someone slept there. But otherwise it's as sterile as an operating table, and there's no one here. 

"Where do you think everyone is, Ban-chan?" 

"I don't know." 

Get out, something inside him says. Get out of here. But they have a job to do. 

The corridors really do look identical. Ginji can get lost on the streets of his own former domain, but even Ban is getting confused now. Have they turned left three times, or four? Ginji is following him confidently, sure Ban knows where they're going, though he's fully aware they had no definite destination. They reach a stairwell and Ban intends to go up, but stops with his foot on the first step. Down. 

"Do you hear something?" Ginji confirms that faint murmur is more than his imagination. So they descend. By the bottom of the first flight the noise has resolved into voices, the steady thrum of many speaking as one. 

This hall is wide, and without doors save the double pair at the opposite end. They walk down it cautiously, the chanting louder the closer they get, a hair-raising, monotone chorus. So they're having their service in the basement. Whatever that ceremony consists of. The voices resound through the thick metal. "We should look for another way in," Ban starts to suggest. 

Then the doors burst open, as if someone had slammed them aside, and they're in the empty corridor, nowhere to run, a hundred expressionless faces turning back toward them. The room beyond is wide as a gymnasium, but the ceiling is low, and the people stand in precise rows, with an aisle left between them, so their view of the man at the other end is unobstructed. Ban recognizes his face from their research, drooping mouth and buggy eyes. He's shorter in person, and his scarlet robes look more ridiculous than sinister. 

He raises his arms. "Come in." 

His power is in his voice, rich and deep and inviting. And he has a hundred followers, all staring at them. 

"Ginji," Ban shouts, but Ginji is already on it. He jams his fist against the fusebox beside the door, in an instant pulls the current to himself and sends it surging back tenfold in a sparking flash. The lights glow brilliant, and then the circuit breakers cut the power, plunging hall and room into darkness. 

Ban is moving before his partner reaches the box, sprinting into the room. He spotted their target immediately, standing in the first row only a few feet from their leader. In the confusion of the darkness he hopes to grab her, haul her out before anyone can tell what's going on. He came with a flashlight and now he wields it as a weapon, blinding the eyes he shines it in. 

But there isn't chaos, no panicked rushes for the door; they're all just standing there in the darkness, like mannequins, motionless, as if the loss of power cut their lives off as well. Not normal, and yes, he knew they wouldn't be, but there's something else going on here, and if he had a spare second to consider-- 

"So good of you to join us," and with the leader's smooth bass, the lights come back on, yellow and dim. None of the people have moved a centimeter, save one; the sister now stands at the man's side, head respectfully down, and he holds her hand like a parent with a toddler, reassuring and responsible. 

He knew their objective. He knew they were coming. Spy on the outside, or had this always been a set-up? 

Didn't matter anyway, if they moved fast enough. Ginji's by his side, ready to grab the girl; if she fights they'll just knock her out and haul her off. The rest of them, seems like they won't do anything without word from their leader. And he Ban can neutralize. He pushes down his glasses, raises his head. 

Only as he meets those bulging bug-orbs with his own evil eye, he sees something move in their black, something which doesn't belong there. 

The boy in the hospital, drug overdose, they said, in a waking coma, brain there but no mind, no soul. All these people, chanting as one, in blank halls with no decoration, no variation, nothing to feed the spirit, no need, because that spirit was being devoured, slowly ingested until the shell of the body crumples into the vacuum. Their leader might have started out an ordinary, petty, mortal man, but somewhere along the line his lust for power had caught the attention of something far, far more dangerous. 

Ban's made a mistake. Somewhere the old witch is laughing, that he was so incautious. The jagan can engulf a rat as easily as a man, capture a snake or a sparrow alike. But demons don't dream. 

The eyes are windows to the soul, and he just opened his to a monster. 

Somewhere he's screaming, but that's so far away he can hardly hear it. Under his skin slides another spirit, not his and not the serpent he's always lived with, this new presence doesn't fit, there's no room. It's larger than any of him, fiery in his cold blood, scorching him from the inside like acid in his veins. 

He knows how to fight this, but he opened himself to the invasion, and that's close enough to permission that the demon can exploit it, accept it as surrender of his own free will. But he's fighting it anyway; otherwise he's not himself anymore or ever. Some fates are worse even than the darkest visions he can give. There's still a little choice left, and he'll take the final option if that's the only one he can grasp. 

And then there's light, so brilliant it hurts, and that pain reestablishes the presence of his own body. He can see from his eyes again. But when he tries to move his hand he remains motionless, and when he tries to call out his mouth doesn't open. 

He can see Ginji, standing between him and the leader, now lying twitching on the floor, his red robes spread around him like pooling blood. Can't see Ginji's face, but he's glowing, pure as sunlight, his fists clenched. 

"Stop it. Whatever you're doing to Ban-chan--stop it!" 

The man drags himself up, his muscles trembling from the electric jolt that felled him. He should be unconscious, but there's not enough left of the mortal to matter anymore. "Too late. He's mine now." 

"What to you mean, yours?" But Ginji can perceive more than he should, even if he doesn't understand. "What are you?" 

The man climbs to his feet, unsteadily, but his eyes are pits, cold and sure. Run, Ban tries to scream, get the fuck away while he's still weakened. But Ginji can't hear him. One hand rises, red sleeve falling back from a skinny, pale wrist. 

And Ban's own hand lashes out, a striking snake which Ginji only just dodges in time. 

"Ban-chan?!" 

Think, Ginji, the puppet perfume, that bug, you've seen this before--Good. Maybe Ban can't move of his own volition, but he can still feel the building charge in the air as Ginji calls on his power, an aura of firefly sparks circling him. Ginji knows to the kilowatt what jolt it takes to fell him, and with the demon's attention divided between two it would be enough. 

But the man's hand raises again, palm out, and Ban's body freezes in place. "He's mine. Strike me again, and I'll stop his heart." 

The electricity flashes around his partner like a living thing, but Ginji is paralyzed, not seeing it's a useless threat, when this monster obviously wants him so badly. 

"Take the girl and go," the man says, and Ban's relief is so sharp it cuts. The monster comprehends the power which struck his host down; rather than risk battle with Raitei he'll let Ginji escape unscathed. Ginji's safe. 

Except Ginji's not moving, not even taking the arm of the girl who obediently trots forward at her inhuman leader's beckoning. But not because he doesn't understand, and right now Ban wishes more than anything that Ginji actually were as dumb as he seems sometimes. A mocking tilt of the man's head, and Ban finds he can move his mouth, work his tongue. At his almost soundless exhalation, his partner looks around, their eyes meeting. One chance. "Ginji, just get the hell out of here--" 

--and right as he says it, and the control clamps back down, he realizes how badly he's screwed up. Waltzing right into the demon's trap, again, like a fucking moron. Because now his partner knows how far out of control this situation is, and this is Ginji. 

For a moment nothing but horror shows in those huge brown eyes, realization burning like ice, that this might be it. And then, even colder, hard as diamond and just as flawless, there's resolution. 

Ginji's mouth might be shaping an apology, and then he's turning away, turning back to the monster. Bowing his head, with all the rough and sincere manners of a boy raised in a manmade hell. And Ban sees the faintest curl of a smile warping the man's lips, and understands that it was never about him after all, that this is what he wanted all along. 

That revelation hits like a sucker punch; if he could move he would throw up, but he can't, anymore than he can scream, or curse, or do anything at all to stop what is to come. Ginji doesn't know enough to appreciate the power of the words he is about to say, and why this monster has done so much to hear them. A willing agreement, unbreakable by the old laws, the only ones that matter. 

The thing of it is, Ginji might say it anyway, even if he did know, because they're partners, and Ginji is the biggest fool to ever walk the planet, too true to be real, a trusting, pure-hearted, loyal friend. And sacrifice is another of those things that Ginji understands too well. 

His voice sounds like the end of the world. 

"Let Ban-chan go. Take me instead." 

* * *

to be continued... 


	2. II

"Thank you," their client weeps. "Oh, thank you..." 

At the leader's nod the girl slumped in his arms, and Ban carried her out to the car, laid her on the backseat. He didn't look back once. Look back and everything was over. They were outmatched; break that contract and he would only be handing himself over again. This way there's hope. 

"I didn't think--you did it. Thank you." 

Shouldn't hope be a little, light thing? It feels like a mountain's weight, crushing him. He drove without seeing the road. The client met him outside the Honky Tonk, and her face went slack when he opened the car door and she saw her sister. Disbelief, but then the relief, the joy was real. Calling her sister's name as she draws her out, and the girl comes willingly, but blindly, a stiff, unyielding mannequin when her sister embraces her. But the client still thanks him. 

It's all he can do to accept her money. Left hand, because his right is curled into a fist so tight the nails break the skin. "You didn't think any of us would be coming back." 

And now she's crying openly, mascara running in murky streaks down her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. They had my sister..." 

Ginji would be forgiving. Ban can't be. "You set us up, you bitch." 

If she had warned them they might have had a chance. "He said he'd kill her. He said it had to be you. I didn't--I knew it wasn't right, but--I had no choice--he said he'd kill her!" She sobs. It would be easier if they were crocodile tears, but they're all real. And she doesn't get it anyway, thinks she made a bargain with a human menace, hostage situation out of any cliche cop drama. She doesn't appreciate how this really is. "I'm so sorry about your friend..." 

"Go," he says. "Take her and get out of here." Rude to a client. Bad for business. But better than slamming his fist into her grieving, grateful face. He throws the money down after her. 

She won't pick it up. Looks at him, but doesn't say anything, just shakes her head wordlessly, and then she's lead her sister to her car and they've driven away. 

He needs to have better self-control, but Ginji has been in the demon's grasp for over an hour, and Ban doesn't have a plan yet. Can't even think of one. It happened too fast, if he had been quicker to respond, quicker to understand...he knew something was wrong. If he told his partner, warned him... 

"Ban-san?" Natsumi emerges from the Honky Tonk. She kneels to gather the bills scattered on the sidewalk, shuffles them into rough order and extends the money toward him. He takes it. No choice; he might need it later. But right now information is more important. 

"Ban-san?" Natsumi's eyes are innocent, not Ginji's determined light, but honest naivety. She hasn't even witnessed much manmade evil, not firsthand, and while loss and grief are familiar things, her faith in the innate goodness of the world is smooth and unscarred and precious. "What happened to Ginji-san?" 

Through the window he can see Paul watching. He's probably picked up most of what he needs to know from overhearing Ban's conflict with the client. Everything else...is too much to explain. They've all seen plenty of amazing things in this world. But this is outside that sphere. 

"It's okay," he tells Natsumi. "I'm getting him back." 

New mission now. The client: Midou Ban--and he does not accept failure. One hundred percent success rate, Ginji. Don't you fucking dare screw that up. 

* * *

Shido technically knows how to use a telephone, but he rarely bothers. Kazuki doesn't blink when he emerges from the grocery store and a sparrow hops onto his shoulder, cheeky and unafraid, closes its bill over a few strands of his long hair and tugs. "All right," he says, "you can tell Shido-san I'm coming," and the little bird takes to the air in a whir of rapid wingbeats. 

Shido meets him at the gates of Madoka's estate. There's a wild hawk hunched on his shoulder, but the Beastmaster's frown is fiercer. "Something's wrong," he says, not bothering with a greeting. 

"Is it Madoka-san?" 

"No." Shido shakes his head. "And I don't want to worry her. Not until we know what's going on." 

"What is going on, Shido-san?" 

"Something's happened to Ginji." 

"Ginji-san--" 

"They can't tell me what." Shido's wave encompasses all his friends, the crows gathered atop the estate walls, the squirrels listening in the nearby trees. "But the birds are insisting that the Thunder Emperor is..." He trails off. 

"In trouble?" 

"This isn't normal, Kazuki." The Beastmaster's eyes are dark. "I haven't asked anyone to keep watch over Ginji in a long time. Occasionally someone will let me know what they're up to, if it's good gossip, because he's part of my flock. But this time--they aren't telling me what. I don't think they know. But they're sure something's wrong. Same as they'd feel a storm coming--but this is different. Like there isn't a storm, where there should be one. It's upsetting them." 

"Have you tried contacting Ginji-san?" 

"I've tried, but the birds don't know where he is. The rats and mice haven't found him either." 

"What about Midou-kun?" 

"I called their phone. He didn't answer." 

He is worried, to not even growl his usual irritation at the mention of Ginji's partner. Kazuki can feel his tension, wound so taut his frame is all but singing, and that concern resonates against Kazuki's own instincts. The hawk on Shido's shoulder shifts uncomfortably, opens its wings and closes them again. 

Just yesterday Kazuki spoke with Ginji, a few minutes about their current job, and he sounded anxious but not afraid. But a lot can happen in twenty-four hours. "We can try the Honky Tonk," he suggests. "If they're not there, Paul might know where they are. They've been on a job for the past couple days, looking for someone. Maybe a problem came up with that." 

He was thinking they could simply call, but Shido nods decisively, says, "Let's go, then." The hawk takes wing, spiraling up to herald their departure, its beak opening in a shrill scream. 

Kazuki watches it soar, wondering if Madoka heard that cry from inside the house, or if Shido leaves her another signal. He knows that there is some farewell, even if not obvious to anyone but they two. 

His bells ring softly as he follows Shido, the strings within vibrating in concert with his jangled nerves, no defined fears, only the certainty that something is wrong. 

* * *

Ginji isn't used to fear. He isn't often afraid, not since he was a little boy, awoken to a nightmare with no memory of the life he might have dreamed before. Fear is dangerous in Mugenjou, is a weakness, and within the Infinite Castle you must be strong, or else die. 

But Ban's scream was agonized, and Ban's eyes were empty as a corpse's for that instant, and the terror tightened his chest, stopped his breath. He's seen Ban hurt, it's dangerous, what they do, but Ban is stronger than anyone he knows, and he can always be trusted to survive. 

Except this monster is stronger, and Ginji didn't have a choice. He doesn't regret it, won't, even though under Ban's utter calm he can see rage, his glare as clear as spoken words--you moron, you stupid idiot, how could you-- 

_How could you, Ban-chan?_ Tell him to go. He does what Ban tells him to, usually, because Ban is smarter, because he trusts Ban, because this is how they work, and they're the invincible GetBackers. But Ban was wrong. Ginji doesn't know how to fight something like this. And Ban does. Sometimes there's lots of choices. But sometimes there's only one. 

This is a monster, and maybe he should be afraid, but when Ban straightens up there's life in his eyes again, that anger all his own will. He takes the girl, she'll be safe, she'll be with her sister again, and Ginji smiles a little, knowing how their client will feel. Wishing he could see her smile for himself. 

Ban says nothing, not to the demon, not to Ginji, and he doesn't look back. But every step he takes away sounds of a promise, each footfall a vow that he will return, as soon as he knows how they can defeat this monster. 

The leader is soothing his followers, a chant in an unknown tongue, rising and falling with hypnotic regularity. He doesn't try to restrain his captive, barely seems to recall he's there. For now Ginji just stands before him, seeming to watch, while inwardly he reaches with an almost nonexistent current into the surrounding building. He can trace the wiring with that invisible hand, network strung through the walls like veins. There's plenty of power here to draw on. 

He waits long enough for Ban to have driven away with the girl, and then he moves to attack. He's braced for a defense, but the leader doesn't move. Just looks at him with an ironic smirk as Ginji lashes out with that power. 

--it hurts it burns he can't breathe it stings it aches he can't breathe it hurts it hurts-- 

He's on his knees, panting, desperately pulling air into his lungs, his limbs weak and tingling. In all the time he can remember, he's never been harmed by so much as a static shock. What others feel as pain, he knows only as a touch as gentle as a feather, as invigorating as a cold shower. Objectively he knows it hurts normal people. But he's never completely understood how it could. 

The leader is standing over him, human lips smiling, but only the monster in his eyes. "Yes," he says. "You'll be strong enough." 

He crouches, the red robes rustling. Takes Ginji's chin in his hand and forces his head up. "It's too late. You were mine from the moment you agreed. Nothing you try against this shell will do any good." 

His nails are sharp enough that Ginji can feel them pricking his cheeks. The leader releases him and stands again, puts his hand to his own arm, pushing up the crimson sleeve, and with those nails draws a long scratch down the pale flesh. 

There's a brief trail of blood, but it's gone almost as soon as the cut is made, and when he lifts his hand his arm is unmarked but for a slight crimson spotting, wiped away with one pass of his sleeve. But Ginji winces as his own arm smarts. Looks down, and sees a scratch just as long writ on his own skin, white edged in red. But this one doesn't fade. 

"You see?" the monster asks. "Your strength that I need is mine now. Get up." 

He cups his hand over the scratch. By tomorrow morning there won't be a trace of it, but it stings now. 

"Get up," the leader repeats, and kicks him in the ribs, hard enough to bruise. There's no anger in his tone, not even impatience. That blow was motivation, nothing more. And because he can. 

Ginji gathers his feet under him, stands. If this were a man he could understand him, could guess what he wanted. There's so many different sorts, so many different reasons why people seek to hurt, to kill, to destroy. Fear and pain, grief and anger, even lust and pleasure. There are ways to answer all of them. But this monster isn't human. 

He looks instead at the people, the cult members, standing still and silent in their even rows. Their eyes are open, but if they see him there's no sign. Their blank faces are worse than the most hopeless visages he saw in Mugenjou's pits. 

"Why do you follow him?" he asks them. His voice sounds thready in his ears, weak. "Why do you stay here?" 

"They love me," the leader says. "I've promised them what they want." 

"What can you give them?" 

The leader smiles. "Oblivion." He raises his arms. "They came to me, too lonely to want to speak, too ashamed to be able to cry, too afraid to seek death. They came at first because this creature whose shell I took said they would find happiness here. A place they could live without effort, without caring, if they would only give him their love, give their love only to him. So I found him, feeding on their pathetic spirits, that he craved just for the taste, but a true meal for me. And I can offer them more, in my taking. Life without spirit, the simplest of all." 

"No..." 

There's a boy in the first row, he can't be older than Himiko, and the delicate symmetry of his features is like Makubex. His face is impassive but when Ginji moves, his dark eyes track the motion, and Ginji lifts his head, meets that empty stare. "Is this really what you want?" he asks the boy. "What about the people outside of here who are missing you? Even if it's easier in here--what about everyone who has it harder, because you're not there?" 

"He can't hear you," the monster says. "They only hear my voice now." 

Ginji takes a step toward the boy, is a little surprised that he isn't stopped. "Whatever happened to you--wasn't it better that it hurt, than feeling nothing at all? You can't be happy if you don't feel anything--don't you miss it? Don't you miss laughing with your friends? Don't you miss really loving someone, being loved?" 

Now he's close enough that he can see the tears in the dark eyes, can watch one well free and trace a liquid path down his still cheek. Easy to extend his hand, brush it away, and still the monster does nothing. 

At his touch the boy trembles, and then, like crystal shattering under a sustained note, his silence bursts into ragged sobs. Ginji gathers him into his arms, rubs his shuddering back. 

The monster tsks, a teacher's patient scolding, reaches out and clasps the boy's shoulder. The boy freezes, pulls back, stiffening like hardening plaster into a breathing statue once more. Ginji shakes him, feels no response. Whirls on the monster. "You--" 

"He's new," the monster says. "I don't want to waste what's left of him." He shrugs, negligently. "Though I suppose it'll make little difference, after tonight." 

"Tonight--" 

"They're unnecessary. I have you now. Your strength." His hand reaches, cool fingers to Ginji's cheek. He tries to flinch away, and can't, bound in that same force which holds the rest of them. "With you I'll attain my desire. Tonight I take the last from them. Tonight they'll all be sacrificed, and you'll be all that's left, all I need..." 

* * *

to be continued... 


	3. III

There's no answer, however long Ban pounds on the door of Maria's shop. He'd just break the windows, but he knows better than to smash a witch's glass, even with his strength and the Evil Eye. She's not here, and no telling where she might have gone, or how many days or weeks or years before she returns. Maybe her cards told her something. Or maybe he's just unlucky. 

He leaves a circular dent as wide as a dinner plate where he smashes his fist into the brick. Shoves his hands in his pockets and strides back to his car, thinking. There are others in the city, not just witches and mediums. It takes him a little while to dig the name up out of his memory--there's too much clutter there, Maria took him too many damn places, introduced him to too many people. But it's a chance. If he's still alive. 

The house is just as he remembered, Western, white clapboard and green trim, tucked away in the corner of a quiet Nerima neighborhood. The cat on the stoop--indecently white, not the traditional witch's black--yawns at him, doesn't bother to so much as twitch its long tail out from under his feet. He steps over it, rings the bell. 

The person who answers is so old and stooped it's hard to tell if it's a man or a woman, the features so wizened that they could be any race. "Midou Ban," Ban says. "Maria introduced me to you once. I need your library." 

For a good minute he only blinks at Ban, the murky eyes behind the thick glasses swimming like mudfish in an aquarium. Then, sudden and sharp, the bare head nods, and he turns, beckons Ban inside. 

Crawd is not a warlock per se, not of any of the witch bloodlines, with no magic to speak of. But decades of obsession with the occult have made him an indispensable expert, a specialist even with no skill. In all the world there are perhaps half a dozen others with his breadth of knowledge, and his collection is unmatched in Japan. 

"Demons," Ban says, and Crawd leads him down wooden steps, well-lit and carefully swept, to a low-ceilinged room humming with an air conditioner's dry cool. There's more files than books, wedged in long gray drawers with meticulous hand-lettered labels. 

"Please describe the specimen, Midou-kun," Crawd asks him, measured and sure as a doctor, with a clipboard before him. 

He does, as well as he's able, but even pausing to order his thoughts there's too much that there aren't words for. He begins sitting, but soon he's pacing, his shoes squeaking on the polished tile, the walls pressing him into a single circling route. The tone of Crawd's questions does not change, his reedy voice too dry for any expression, but when Ban slams his hands down on the table hard enough that his pencil skitters across the clipboard, one eyebrow rises. He gets to his feet slowly. "It is time for supper, Midou-kun. Shall I order you something?" 

"I don't want any damn--" He cuts himself off. Can't risk insult. "No, thank you. If you've got any reference books or anything I could look at--" 

The little old creature sidles to the drawers, his gnarled fingers flipping through the files with surprising dexterity. He withdraws a few sheaths of papers, sets them down on the table before Ban. "Six accounts. Read them and determine how similarly they describe your own experience. I will return within an hour." 

"Yeah. Thanks." 

Three of the accounts are in Crawd's hand, the characters formed with the precision of a foreigner's unconfidence, dictations annotated with detailed footnotes. The other three are also hand-written, one on pages with ragged margins, torn from a book. The stories all tell are fantastic as any fiction, ghost stories, appropriate for any summer night around a fire. But there are details that ring too true--the pain of that intrusion, the blackness where humanity should be. Two tales in particular, and the final one leaves him sick. No happy endings, and the grief is as tangible as the black on white words which describe it--saving a soul does not mean saving a life, always, and something in him knots up cold and hard, like he's inhaled ice instead of air. 

But Ginji's still alive. He knows that as certain as he ever does. It's not something he's ever had to question, that certainty. Faith never came easily to him, trust not part of his serpent nature. But this isn't blind belief. Just truth. 

When Crawd enters he springs up, waving the folder at him. The wizened old man shakes his head, however, halting his questions, and gestures Ban to follow him. The room upstairs is small and cramped, as dusty and cluttered as the library is austere. The TV is so old it's black and white, lines of static shivering across the picture in irregular forays. He has to blink to adjust his vision to the screen before he can make sense of what he's seeing. News reporter, flickering strobes, broad side of a fire truck. White flames leaping from a black outline, and the scrolling text identifies the address. 

He had parked on that street corner this afternoon. They had entered that building together not twelve hours previous. 

"--explosion appears to be an accident," the reporter babbles over the wail of sirens and the crowd pushing close to the camera. "It's unknown how many people were currently in residence, but the majority seems to have escaped, with only one reported casualty. Also unknown are the whereabouts of Ikura Rikudo, leader of the--" 

The camera pans over the mob gathered at the disaster, and Ban is broken from his momentary paralysis, curses as he spots the lone figure at the crowd's fringe. Taller than most, and the bandana is visible even in the grainy pixels. No way it's coincidence. The monkey trainer's too damn smart for his own good. And if he wasn't alone... 

Ban spits out a garbled insistence that he'll return, but he's not sure Crawd's old ears hear it, and by the time the ancient would have a response he's already pounding out the door. 

* * *

The building looks innocuous enough. But no one who dwelled in Mugenjou judges by immediate appearances. 

Natsumi was worried, that was obvious the moment they set foot in the HonkyTonk, but Kazuki was more alarmed when Paul told them where the GetBackers had gone, before he or Shido could ask. "They went this morning," the cafe owner said, flatly. "Ban came back two hours later with the retrieval." 

"Ginji-san wasn't with him," Natsumi said. "Ban-san--he didn't say what happened, he just left. But he was...really upset." 

It's so little, a thin thread indeed to follow. But Natsumi's eyes looked as if she might have been crying, and Paul, who had watched them all leave for Mugenjou with only a blithe farewell, offered them no smile. Instead of his ever-present newspaper he was busy with his laptop, although Kazuki couldn't see the screen. 

There's no one to hire him or Shido, but when Kazuki left the HonkyTonk and headed for the bus stop, the Beastmaster accompanied him. Without Midou, the community building housing the cult Paul mentioned is their only lead. 

They don't need a client; this isn't a job. They aren't kings anymore, but some loyalties continue even after the titles have been abandoned, and some debts always remain unpaid. 

Amano Ginji saved him, Kazuki knows. In Mugenjou he might have lost himself, given himself to that cruel chaos believing in its beauty. But that boy with lightning at his fingers and strength in his eyes showed him something better, revealed to them all the truth of the darkness by reminding them what light was again. 

Footsteps behind him, and Kazuki turns as Shido approaches. "Anything?" he asks. 

The Beastmaster shakes his head. "There're no animals inside. Not a single mouse. And none will enter." He's even tenser now, balanced on the balls of his feet. 

"It's a new building," Kazuki says. "There aren't many chinks for my strings. But I haven't heard any people on the first or second floors. We can go through one of the windows." 

He threads a strand under the frame, raises the latch and draws open the window. Once inside they move silently, in easy synchronization. The Beastmaster adopts a creature's aspect, exploring the long corridors with a bat's keen ears and directing them down a flight of stairs. 

They know their route is the correct one when they're set upon by a dozen men, armed with baseball bats and truncheons. Not fighters, though, and their assault makes Kazuki hesitate. It's a coordinated rush, but to a man they're swinging with blind, unfocused ferocity, and their blank faces remind him of Makubex's wire dolls. Puppets, even if he sees no obvious cords, and he casts his strings to trap, not hurt. Shido does the same, avoiding calling on his beasts' strengths, relying on his fists to defend Kazuki's back while he weaves his net. 

Fighting with Shido is not like fighting with Juubei and Toshiki. Toshiki's grace makes him easy to understand, but one perfect response to every assault. And Juubei he doesn't need to construe; any action Juubei takes might as easily be his own. He relies on them as he relies on the strength of his own limbs, as he counts on his strings. But Kazuki has fought with Shido before, against him, and beside him. He comprehends the wildness of Shido's battle, though he cannot himself follow that feral path well enough to predict him. But he trusts Shido, and that can be enough. 

His strings and Shido's guard make short work of this skirmish. When all their attackers have been secured, Kazuki stares down at them. Not one of them touched him, and Shido didn't get more than a couple bruises. Hardly a battle at all, only a waste of time--and he pales as he realizes it. "They were just delaying us." 

"But for what?" 

He's running down the hallway, his bells ringing in time with his strides, Shido moving panther-silent beside him. Before he can wind his strings through the lock at the other end, Shido has raised his arm and slashed the door aside with a bear's powerful blow. 

The rows of dark heads give him pause, but before Kazuki can wonder why no one is turning to observe their intrusion, he hears, "Shido! Kazu-chan!" Familiar voice, but not bright in greeting--he hasn't heard that tone in a long time, but it snaps him to instant attention. "Get out of here now!" 

"Ginji-san!" Beside him, Shido plants his feet against the automatic impulse to obey that ringing imperative. As Volts they followed Raitei's orders unquestioning, but this is not Mugenjou. Across the room he can see Ginji, on his knees, and even from this far away his eyes are wide in panic, his face pale with pain. The man in red standing over him has his fist buried in those blond spikes, wrenching back his head. 

"Ginji!" Shido charges forward, but the people move, closing ranks in perfect concert, as if they're all tied to the same cord, aligning shoulder to shoulder to form a living wall between the door and Ginji. And still they do not look at them, do not even turn back to face Kazuki or Shido. 

There's a sharp smell in the air, a chemical rankness. Shido coughs on it, and Kazuki glances past the motionless crowd. On the tile floor he sees the rainbow sheen of oil spreading. 

"Just get everyone out--" Ginji's cry is choked off. Past the dark heads, the leader's hand comes up, and the lit match between his fingers gleams, trails an arc of light as he tosses it. The spinning flame vanishes for a split second as it hits the gasoline-slicked floor, drowned, and then with a roar like wind through a canyon, it erupts into a yellow-bright field of dancing tongues. 

And still the people do not move. Drugged, or something worse, no more than breathing mannequins, kindling to feed this pyre. "What's wrong with you? Run!" Shido cries, but not a single man or woman takes a step. The Beastmaster curses, his dark eyes narrowed against the toxic smoke, shoving against their flesh blockade. "Ginji!" 

"Shido--Kazu-chan!" Kazuki can't see Ginji, but his voice is strained, strangled. "Help them!" 

Amidst the heat and the panic Kazuki feels a different prickling, his hairs rising in a field as insistent as an ocean current. He recognizes that sensation of static, well enough not to be surprised when the fire's poisonous brilliance is for an instant dimmed by flickering veins of pure luminance. 

But the electricity's expected thundercrack is echoed by a wordless, agonized scream that stabs through Kazuki. "Ginji-san!" 

"Ginji!!" Shido bellows. 

Around him, heads lift, eyes widen, and suddenly the singular body of the people is a mob of shrieks and flailing arms, wailing and shoving and staggering. The flames licking the walls leap higher, as if aroused by that terror. 

Water will not put out an oil fire, but his rivers are not of liquid. Kazuki casts all his strings out in a shield, weaving a blanket over the entire crowd. The fire is too great for him to extinguish, but he can protect them from the worst of the flames. There's only so much oxygen, however, and he's already lightheaded from the smoke. 

"That way!" Shido shouts, a lion's earthshaking roar, and then he's herding the crowd toward the door. It should be a stampede, but they're corralled in the limits of Kazuki's web, and before they can trample one another Shido has shoved into their midst, directs them with terse commands and deliberate pushes, a sheepdog managing a human flock. 

Fire is already blazing in the hall. Kazuki shifts his strings to umbrella the moving crowd as Shido prods the last of them through the door. Then stops, his arm before his face to block the worst of the heat as he stares back into the burning room. 

"Shido!" 

"I don't see him, Kazuki!" The Beastmaster's voice is hoarse with smoke and stress. "Ginji, or that bastard in red--" 

"There must be another exit," Kazuki pants. "That man wouldn't have burned himself alive--Shido, I can't keep this shield up in here!" 

"But, Ginji--" 

Kazuki's eyes are tearing up, but he has no free hand to wipe them clear. He squints to peer through the shimmering heat and smoke, sees no motion but the dance of the flames. But Ginji told them to help these people. And Ginji had not been helplessly paralyzed as the others were. 

He pushes that scream from his mind. "He must have escaped--now we must!" 

Shido curses again, dashes over the threshold as Kazuki withdraws the last of his strings and slams the door shut. The fire's gone too far to be contained so simply, however, flames already devouring the walls as they run down the corridor. They've spread too far, too fast; oil must have been poured elsewhere, or there were others lighting it. 

Kazuki remembers how quickly a building can burn--this is a modern construction, plaster and steel, not paper and wood, but the flames are just as ravenous, consuming what they can. He blinks, and the screams around him are not strangers', and the walls blackening behind that raging orange are those that surrounded him for fifteen years. 

For an instant he reaches for Juubei's hand, only to close his fist over his strings instead, and he recalls himself, shakes his head sharply, and smoke obscures the vision. Mugenjou is kilometers distant, his birthplace further still, and more lives than his could burn here if they don't move fast. This fire is as vicious as any, and there will be even more to fuel it if there's gas lines in the building. 

A flick of his wrist frees the men he bound earlier; the vacant aggression is gone from their faces, no longer attackers, just as terrified as the others as they join the herd. One is unconscious; Shido grabs him and slings him over his shoulder without hardly breaking stride. The stairwell is filled with smoke, blinding their climb, and there's no safety at the top, an inferno raging in the corridor which would lead to the exit. Over the roar of the fire he can hear sobbing, frantic wails. 

But there's a window on this wall, just a little ways down, he remembers. So they're not so far from freedom after all. "Shido, when I give the signal," he says, and gathers a few of his strings, forces them into the wall, winding through chinks in the plaster and cement. The fire's heat is stifling and it's hard to maintain the shield when he's concentrating on this; he's half-blind and his long hair is caught in the zippers and buttons of the people pressed close against him, crowding under his protection. But he draws his strings taut without hesitation, calls, "There!" and points. 

Shido's fist slams into the wall with the force of a charging rhinoceros, vibrates along the lines of weakness the threads have outlined. The wall crumbles away, and cool evening air blows through the dark gap. He can hear, faintly, the shriek of sirens, and then that's drowned by the wail of the people as they press past him, towards their escape. It's a few feet above the ground and Shido blocks the way, cautions them and begins to help them out, siphoning them two at a time through the narrow hole. 

Nearly all of them are out when there's a percussive, thunderous boom. The floor bucks under their feet, everyone screams, and Kazuki only just has time to raise his strongest shield when a chunk of the ceiling above them comes crashing down, slides off the shell of his strings. There's no order left, just terror, and as the final people shove towards the exit they crush him back. He staggers, drops to his knees, fighting to maintain his hold on the trembling strings. They're biting into his fingers; his grip on the bells is slicked with blood and gritty with ash. 

"Kazuki!" he hears Shido shout, over another deafening explosion. "Get out of there!!" Through the blur of tears and heat he sees the Beastmaster, beckoning to him from the dark safety beyond the broken wall. 

All their charges must have made it, then, and Shido as well. Kazuki smiles. Above him, the shriek of tortured metal pierces the roar of the fire, and the last of the ceiling gives way, a giant blazing brand plunging down toward him. It tears through his strings like a torch through a spider's silk. There isn't even time for pain, much less fear, just a moment of regret, and then nothing at all. 

* * *

to be continued... 


	4. IV

There are no windows, not in the gray walls or the gray door, and the bare bulb overhead blinds like the sun as he stares up at it. Alone in this narrow room, Ginji smiles. He's lying half on the grating set in the cement floor, the metal bars imprinting grooves into his back, but he's not quite able to roll over just yet. It hurts to breathe. Hurts more to cough, and the coppery saltiness on his tongue makes him nauseous, but still he smiles. 

He doesn't know how they found him, but when Shido and Kazuki burst through that basement door, he had no time to be surprised. It was an unexpected chance, and he knew better than to hope for another. The gasoline had already been poured, rainbow pools spreading across the floor, and all his pleas to the monster's victims had gone unheard, their souls clenched in his iron fist. But so close to the monster, he could see the strain, the will imprisoning him slipping as the leader concentrated his mastery. He watched the monster tighten his hold, meeting each individual pair of eyes, calling their names. 

It was a juggling act, requiring constant attention, and all it might take was a single lapse for the balls to tumble down and roll away. And Ginji had seen it before, that brief flinch when he had tried to strike, an instant before the monster's spell inflicted the pain on him instead. A single chance, and he marshaled all the energy he could wring from the building's power lines to throw at the monster. 

He had been prepared for the hurt, but when the electric shock jarred him he lost the brightness of the fire, the sharp poison of the smoke. He only knew he had screamed from the rawness of his throat. But when he recovered enough to breathe, he heard those terrified, human wails, and saw the fury contorting the monster's face into something not at all human, and knew he had succeeded. Then the leader's hands closed around his arms like talons, dragged him stumbling through the concealed door. He remembers a brief glimpse of evening, dark sky and cool breeze, before something heavy slammed into the back of his head and dropped him into pitch black night. 

He awoke here, behind solid cement walls and a reinforced metal door. Half-conscious, he heard the lock rattle over the pounding in his skull, but before he could drag himself to his feet, his captor entered, furious, raging about his lost opportunities, his stolen sacrifices. And there was only one target left on which to expend his rage. 

But each of the monster's blows that fell on him, every curse the monster screamed, all of it was victory. The blood in Ginji's mouth tastes of life, the hundred lives that escaped the monster's hunger. All free, like the girl, a hundred successful retrievals...no one hired us, he can almost hear Ban complain, but he's never cared about the payment, any more than Ban actually does. And right now there's little else that matters. 

He doesn't know for sure that Kazuki or Shido made it out in time, and that doubt aches worse than his head or his stomach, but he knows better than to think about it. Despair can hit harder than fists or boots, and wreak more damage. A fire couldn't take down two of the Volts' kings. Shido is too strong, Kazuki too swift. 

He doesn't dwell on it, focuses instead on their victory. The monster isn't infallible, for all his plotting and manipulation. He holds that hope inside his heart, like cupping his hands around a candle--don't give it breath or else he might blow it out. There's no one now but him, and that's always...difficult. He's never been good at worrying about himself. Ban isn't the first person to tell him so. Though Ban is the loudest about it. 

It's strange, how Ban will yell at him if ever he asks whether Ban is all right after a fight, but if he neglects to mention any injury took himself, Ban gets just as angry, even fully knowing how quickly Ginji can heal. And Ban always knows when he's hurt, even if he tries to pretend he isn't. 

He wonders if Ban is worried now. He hopes not; he hopes Ban is still just mad at him for giving himself up. Really, there's no reason for Ban to be concerned. Those hundred escaped alive, and he's been hurt worse than this before. When Raitei fought Midou Ban, there had been that moment that he thought he might die--he had almost forgotten what that fear felt like. But he's not so afraid now. There's no reason for him to be. He isn't so badly hurt, and Ban is coming for him. And Kazuki and Shido must have survived. 

Yet he still shivers, when he hears the lock clink again. Rolling over--it doesn't really hurt so much, and impatiently he blinks away the spots clouding his vision--he pushes himself against the wall, uses that leverage to shove himself to his knees. Not enough, though; he should brace himself to bowl the monster over and run, but his legs won't support him that far. And then the door swings open. 

The monster has shed the red robes, and in these black pants and shirt he would pass for any regular man on the street. His face is calm, mask of humanity restored, but for the fathomless pits of his eyes. He stops just far enough in to shut the door, studies his captive. Ginji glares back, refusing to lower his eyes. 

"I apologize for my previous fit of pique," the monster says at last, calmly. "It was only a passing frustration; in the long run it changes nothing. You're all I need. But then, there's really no harm done." His gaze flicks down to the grate. "Touch it," he says. 

"What?" 

"Put your hand there," the monster orders, patiently, but when Ginji tries to draw back instead, he sighs, raises his hand. Ginji's arm extends of its own accord, as if it were someone else's limb, reaches down as he watches it and presses his palm to the metal. 

The monster is holding something, small and rectangular. His fingers move over it, and Ginji feels a current surge to life in the metal under his hand. Sparks pop around him, but none of it hurts. This electricity feels like it's supposed to, warm like spring rain and soothing as a healing salve. It floods him, washes away the pain as it enfolds him in a flickering embrace. 

When it cuts off, abruptly, he almost cries out from the loss. Colors fade back into gray and black and cold eyes watching him. He feels empty, drained; there wasn't enough time for him to absorb most of it. But he no longer hurts. Closing his open mouth, he climbs to his feet, faces the monster. 

"Impressive," his captor breathes. "Even better than I had...you see, of course, what you felt before is the pain of this body, not your own. Your own is as strong as ever." 

"Why did you..." 

"You must be healthy," the monster says. "Even if it's you--you must be whole, if you're to survive long enough for what I need. Before, I drew on those souls to heal this body, but it took time. With you it will be far more efficient." He smiles, his lips pressed pale against his teeth. "I thought I'd have to wait, but you're even more than what I expected. Rest now, Amano-kun. I'll begin in the morning, and you should be ready for it." 

Ginji lunges for him, but the monster is quick, and he's still dizzy. The door slams shut and he rams up against it, pounds his fist once uselessly against the steel. 

The light bulb above flicks off, leaving him in complete darkness. 

* * *

Shido thinks it might be well enough that he can't see Juubei's eyes. 

Emishi brought Kakei Juubei to the hospital, only a few minutes after Shido arrived himself at the ICU's waiting room. Emishi stayed just long enough to hear that the doctors had nothing yet to say about Kazuki's condition one way or another, and then disappeared, ostensibly to find something for supper. Half an hour later he has yet to return. 

There are times a jester is needed as much as a doctor, that laughter can heal as well as any medicine. But Juubei's guilt is like another entity in the room, a palpable mass, for all he sits straight upright in the plastic chair, his shoulders unbowed. He waits quietly, asking no questions, neither of the nurses nor Shido, and the visor hiding half his face makes his expression unreadable. And yet his silent mourning is deafening as a funeral wail. 

Shido wonders if he heard the emergency bulletin that alerted Makubex to the situation, according to Emishi, or if Juubei knew the moment it happened, that again he had failed in his sworn duty of protection. 

The ICU doors swing open to admit yet another nurse. This time Shido pushes off the wall he's leaning against, touches her arm to get her attention. "Has there been anything?" 

She shakes her head. "Not yet. I'm sorry, Fuyuki-san." Her dark eyes travel up and down his figure, darting from his soot-stained vest to the red scratches and burns on his arms. "Are you sure you shouldn't be looked at yourself--" 

"I'm fine," Shido tells her, as he already insisted when first he arrived at the hospital. "If there's anything you can tell us--" 

Her expression softens. "Fuchoin-san's still in surgery. If anything happens, you and your friend will know. I promise." 

As her heels click away on the tile, Juubei asks, "Beastmaster, were you injured?" 

His visored head is angled up toward Shido. "Barely," Shido says. There aren't any animals immune to fire, but the intimation of a turtle's shell had given him some protection, so that he had managed to reach Kazuki before the entire burning roof caved in, and dragged him out of the flames. But not soon enough. 

Juubei is silent for a moment, then says, "I apologize. I had not thought to ask before. If you're wounded, you should be attended." 

"It can wait." He should get the worst of it bandaged. Madoka wouldn't see it, but her staff might chance to comment, and she would worry. 

He wants to call her. Something about that fire, the memory of that heat and smoke, makes him want to hear her voice. But she has a concert in Kyoto in a couple days, and it wouldn't do to add to that stress. At least not until he has something definite to tell her. She knows Kazuki, too. 

And Ginji, of course. She knows Ginji better, but he doesn't want to tell her any of what he saw. Not until he's had a chance to do something about it. If he could get Kazuki out of that fire, to say nothing of those hundred others--are they still standing there, watching the building burn? The last he saw, rescue workers were distributing blankets, leading them all off the street. Not outward injuries, in shock, he heard the helpers pronounce, but Shido recalls their bizarre behavior inside and doubts it's anything so simple. 

His hair prickles at the memory. Something wrong, in that place, like all the animals had told him. Something terribly wrong, and Ginji had been in its midst. That man--was it truly a man at all?--in red, holding him... But if Shido made it out, Ginji must have. He's too strong not to have. 

The walls are too close here. Though he and Juubei are presently the only ones in this area, Shido can't hear even a mouse's scurrying over the hum of equipment and conversations, the constant hurried footsteps just outside the doors. He paces to the other end of the room, turns, and has almost completed a circuit when the outer door slams aside more forcefully than its pneumatic hinge should allow, and Midou Ban stalks in. 

Shido's eyes narrow, his blood rising like it always does with this man, but there's something different tonight. The snake bastard's normal arrogant swagger is contained, shortened to quick clipped strides, and his eyes are hidden behind his dark lenses. "What are you doing here, monkey trainer?" he demands, tight and angry, but not his usual scathing temper. 

'He was really upset,' Natsumi had said at the HonkyTonk, and Shido better understands her nervousness now. The girl hasn't seen much of Midou's serpent side, that cold-blooded nature he hides with hot-headed displays of irritation. 

But snakes are only animals, after all, and Shido knows their language as well as any other. "What are you doing here, Midou?" he asks in turn. 

Midou's head turns to take in Juubei, standing now, then back to Shido, and quick comprehension flashes across his face. "That damn thread spool," he says. "He was the casualty they reported. What's the prognosis?" 

"We haven't yet heard." Juubei's deep voice is misleadingly calm. 

Shido watches Midou's hand clench into a fist, open slowly as if he's forcing the fingers to uncurl. "You goddamn morons. You should've stayed out of this. It's our job." 

"Stayed out of what?" Shido demands. "What did you get Ginji into, you snake bastard? He was--" 

"You saw him?" Midou doesn't move save for his blue eyes flicking to Shido's, but the Beastmaster can't shake the impression that he's suddenly been caught, invisibly, in a python's stranglehold. "Ginji was there?" 

"Him and a hundred others, and the bastard in red who started the fire," Shido tells him. "And if we hadn't been there none of them might've made it out." 

"Dammit. Dammit. I should've thought of that. He got what he wanted, he got Ginji, he wouldn't need..." Midou's muttering trails off. 

"The Raitei was there?" Juubei asks. 

"Ginji was there," Shido says, "but after the fire was started...we didn't see what happened to him, Midou." And for some reason that's as hard to say as it was to confirm Kazuki's condition to Juubei. "Ginji helped us save them, but then--" 

"He's still alive." Midou sounds too flat for that to be anything more than absolute fact. "That bastard wanted him too badly. But who knows where he's been taken now." 

"Who?" Juubei's calm is fracturing under the pressure of his guilt and grief. "Who's responsible for this? What has happened to the Raitei?" 

Midou moves like a striking cobra, too fast to be seen. He's standing before Shido, and then he has Juubei shoved against the wall, arm pressed to the larger man's throat. His eyes are flat as a snake's, blue divided by black slits. "Amano Ginji. How stupid are you? His name's Amano Ginji, samurai boy." 

"Midou!" Shido goes to pull him off Juubei, but Midou twists away, a fluid turning that ends with him crouched in a battle stance. For a moment Shido thinks he might attack, braces himself. In these confines there's little room to dodge. 

Three long needles glitter in Juubei's hand, spread between his fingers. The noise of the hospital around them is muted, forgotten as their focus narrows to the scope of a fight. The look in Midou's eyes is strange. Shido's used to the menace of his fighting genius, but this is different, not as easily read as his serpent moods, more than anger or battle lust. Alarming, because it makes him that much harder to predict, and Midou is dangerous enough as it is. 

Seconds tick by with all of them motionless, posed like stalking tigers, and then the ICU door clatters opens and another nurse rushes in. She's about to speak, but her jaw clicks shut as she sees their still tableau, then parts again. "Fuyuki-san, I'm..." 

Not even sure what she's preventing, she steps forward between him and Midou, and for an instant Shido almost believes she'll be struck. But then Midou straightens, lowers his arm, and that vicious aura slides off him like shed skin. "You've got news about him?" he asks, shortly. 

The nurse glances to him, then looks to Shido. "Fuchoin-san is still in surgery, but one of the doctors will be out shortly to speak with you." She gives him a small, encouraging smile. "I think it might be good news." She turns to Juubei, whose needles have returned to their concealed sheath. "You're Kakei Juubei-san?" 

He nods, and her smile grows a little. "I don't want to get your hopes up too soon, but Fuchoin-san woke a little when he was being sedated, and I heard him ask for you. I'm sure of it." 

Juubei nods again. "Thank you," he says gravely, and it probably sounds like unfeeling courtesy to the nurse, who wouldn't know his baritone well enough to hear its faint tremor. 

"The doctor will be with you in a little while," she says, and disappears back through the door. 

The silence in her wake is just as profound as before her arrival, but not so threatening. Midou's hands are in his pockets, and his slouch should be casual, but when Shido looks him in the eyes he still sees that aspect he can't identify. "Midou..." 

"Yeah." He knows better than to expect an apology, but there's something like remorse in Midou's soft, "This isn't the place for that." He runs his hand through his hair, disturbing the drooping dark spikes. "The thread spool was hurt bad, then." 

Shido looks at Juubei, but answers honestly. "Very badly." 

"He'll make it, samurai boy," Midou says, abruptly. "That guy's strong." He looks at Shido, and the suddenly piercing study of his scrapes and burns makes Shido uncomfortable, but Midou just shakes his head. "You too, huh, monkey trainer? You stupid assholes. It was none of your damn business." 

"We were there looking for you and Ginji," Shido growls. "What the hell happened, Midou? Who was that man?" 

"I've got better things to do than this." The snake bastard starts to turn away, but Shido grabs his shoulder, wrenches him around. 

He thinks he might have made a bad mistake when Midou's hand closes over his wrist and twists back his arm. That steel grip tightens agonizingly over the burns, and even this close Shido still can't quite recognize that emotion flattening those serpent eyes. He realizes his bones could be crushed, and then Midou's clenched jaw works and he lets go, shoves Shido away. 

"Midou." Juubei is at Shido's side, steadying him with an impersonal hand on his arm, his face turned toward the blue-eyed bastard. "Was Kazuki injured for nothing? What has happened to Amano Ginji?" 

"I'm getting him back." It's no more than a hiss. "That bastard demon won't--" 

"Demon?" Shido repeats. "You mean..." 

"I mean demon." Midou's laugh is grating. "No human being, monkey trainer, and not one of your beasts either. Demon, from hell, from those pits that are deeper than this world goes. That's what was using those people. We didn't know what we were up against, and he got Ginji. Ginji surrendered to him, didn't think he had a choice." 

Shido saw all kinds of madness in Mugenjou, from the imbalances of disease to psychotic retreats from horrific reality. But whatever he sees in Midou's eyes now isn't insanity. And Shido's world is not the safe, rational universe that so many humans place their trust in. The terror of all the animals makes more sense now. "Midou, what do you know about demons?" he asks, urgently. If anyone would know it would be this man. "Have you fought them before? Do you know how?" 

Midou stares at him for a moment, as if incredulous that he could be so easily believed. "I'm looking into it. There's a man--I've got sources." 

All Shido can think of is the blank faces of the people, and Ginji's scream. "How do you fight something like that?" 

"What kind of coward are you, monkey trainer?" Midou hisses. "It's a monster, but it's not invincible. I'll destroy this thing." 

"Tell us how," Juubei says. "We have our own score to settle." 

Midou looks to him. "Where's your twin, samurai boy? I thought the thread spool had two of you now." 

"Uryuu stands in my place at Makubex's side, so that I may be here. But he'll also want this battle." 

"It isn't your fight," Midou begins, but is interrupted by the reappearance of the nurse. 

"Kakei-san, the doctor is ready to see you, if you'll come with me. Fuyuki-san, you can as well. And you, sir?..." 

"I can't," Midou says. "I've gotta go back--" 

"I'll come with you," Shido says. Kazuki has Juubei, and there's nothing he can do for either of them. And Ginji needs him. 

"You'll be no help, Beastmaster," Midou hisses. "This isn't a job for your pets. Just stay here." 

"You expect me to stand here and do nothing, snake bastard? If you think I'd just let you have this fight--" Shido stops when Midou turns back, momentarily silenced by what he sees. 

"It's not a fight. Not yet," Midou says. "First I have to know what I'm up against. What we're up against. So unless you're a demon expert, monkey trainer, there's not a damn thing you can do for him yet." He pulls out his celphone, punches a few buttons to turn it on. "Call me when you've heard how long it's going to take the thread spool to get out of here. You've got my number?" 

"Midou." 

At the door Midou pauses. "Don't look so pathetic, monkey trainer. Ginji...he's not going to be taken down by some damn demon." 

Midou's insulting arrogance should be as vexing as always, but it rings oddly hollow. Odd, too, that its uncertainty makes him uncertain. "No," Shido says cautiously. He feels as if he's walking through a pit of vipers, placing every step with care. "Of course not..." 

Their eyes meet, only for a second before Midou turns away, but that's long enough for Shido to finally recognize what is there. He's not surprised he didn't understand it right away. In any animal's eyes he would have immediately known it for what it was, had witnessed it too many times already today. 

But he's never really seen Midou afraid before. And as he follows the doctor and Juubei, Shido thinks that he would as soon never see it again, if this is the price it takes to shake the serpent's conceit. 

* * *

to be continued... 

No, I haven't forgotten this - have been distracted of late, but I didn't mean to leave everyone in suspense for this long. Glad folks are enjoying this, thanks much for the reviews! Sanada - that's a great compliment, that I got you into GB ^^ goldfish - I usually prefer things to be in the standard past tense, but present tense has an immediacy that lends itself to the pacing of certain stories. It's not exactly a deliberate choice, but rather how a story tells itself in my mind - in the case of Darkness Visible, it started in present tense, and keeping it that way helps me stay in the mood. I'm glad to know it works for you; I worry sometimes that it might be awkward, but it would be even more awkward for me to force it otherwise... 


	5. V

There isn't enough power. Ginji takes a deep breath and sends another surge into the grate, the tiny bit that he can spare, a spark no greater than a battery, but it only circles back to him, a brown taste on his tongue. No source to draw on, the generator out of reach until the monster throws the switch, and then the power comes, too much, too swiftly. He tried before to hold onto the electricity, draw the current into himself, but each time it flicked off the moment he recovered himself enough to try, a split second before he could gather it. 

The monster knows him, too well. The monster knows his strength; this room is a cage, concrete reinforced with steel, grounded against a thunderbolt, and he can hardly make a spark by now. The light bulb above shattered with a previous attempt, the last real effort he managed, and he has no strength left to make light. The pitch black abates only for the brief instances when the monster opens the door. It doesn't matter anyway; there's little to see. The bars of the grate are each the width of two of his fingers, framed in concrete; the metal door is thick enough not to echo when he pounds his fists against it. Nothing to hear but his own breathing and a hum of machinery, vibrating faintly through the walls. 

The monster knows his limits as well. He's had one meal, a bowl of rice shoved through the door, shifting the broken glass from the bulb. He ate it with his hands. It wasn't enough; his body needs other energies besides pure current to recharge. 

There's water, at least, a spigot in the corner. Ginji crawls to it now, feels for the plastic handle and twists it until he hears the trickle into the drain below. He puts his hands under the cold water, lets it fill his cupped fingers and brings some to his mouth before splashing it on his face. 

His stomach is aching, but it might be better empty. It had been hard to keep even the rice down, when the pain had started before. 

Unconsciously Ginji touches his chest, presses his hand to his torso, smooth skin under the damp t-shirt. He had run the shirt under the spigot until his fingers cramped with the cold and he hadn't been able to smell the blood anymore, but he had only been able to wring out so much water, and in the darkness the cotton is slow to dry. At least it's not too chilly here; the air wafting down from the ceiling vent is warm. Maybe he should have kept the shirt off until it dried, but he doesn't want to face the monster bare. 

He's not really sure why it matters, when Ban-chan isn't even embarrassed to take a bath in the park fountain. But when the monster is here Ginji could feel his gaze on him, even in the dark, those eyes that aren't human, burning against his skin, studying him with that pleased smile in the slit of light through the door. The monster crouched to run his hand down Ginji's arm, wiping away the drying blood to see the whole flesh beneath. 

He didn't see what the monster did to cause those wounds, didn't see the slashes, just felt the pain as they opened, agonizing fire down his arms, across his chest. The monster wasn't there; he was inflicting those tortures on his own body, in some other place, with knife or sword or axe, but Ginji took each one as his own as they occurred. 

There is a point when screams become meaningless. He thought he might die, might bleed to death on the cold cement, and was horrified by that brief instant when he thought he wanted it, though he had been hurt worse before, and felt more pain, and this small cell was still not Mugenjou. He hated himself, at that moment, that worthless weak thing sprawled on the floor in darkness, and wrapped his bleeding arms around his chest, trying to staunch the hot flow pulsing from him. 

He didn't know when it ended, when those unseen, distant blades stopped cutting. Agony was at last displaced by the sudden pulse in the metal grate under him, burning away the pain in brilliance. The electric fire closed his wounds, cauterizing as it knit him whole again, flesh and spirit together. The respite was overwhelming, as much as the hurt had been, so much that he had to fight just to stay conscious. Like standing under a fountain, a man dying of thirst suddenly drowning, trying to swallow and choking instead. 

He was only half-aware when the power cut off, when the door opened and the monster entered, those vicious eyes burning through him while the strangely gentle hands turned him over, impersonally examining him, to apparent satisfaction. The monster said nothing, however, no further gloating, no reasons given. Ginji forced open his eyes in time to see the door close over the light again, and the footsteps pounded like drum beats through the floor as the monster walked away. 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Ban said once. But it must be hours later and he's still shaking like a feverish child. If he were Ban-chan he could smash aside that steel door, rip it from its hinges, but he's not strong enough, even if he's not dead. 

If he were strong enough, he could spit in the monster's face, when the door opens again; he could fight his way free, though the blows he landed would bruise his own body. But even with his back to the wall, it's hard to stand; he pushes himself to his feet only to slide down again, his legs folding under him. In the blackness he can't tell if he's dizzy, or just too exhausted to move. 

He wants to call for Ban-chan, doesn't dare. If Ban comes too soon he might get caught again, and Ginji has nothing left to stop the monster. It could never have been Ban in this room. Ban-chan is so much stronger, but the power that heals Ginji would hurt anyone else, or worse. 

Ban-chan will come when he's ready, when he knows how to defeat the monster. Ban-chan doesn't lose a fight, but he's a genius of battle, smart enough to know when he must retreat and when he can attack. But Ban-chan will always come. Ginji only has to wait. 

It's really not that hard. The monster won't let him die, and he's been hurt worse before. He's fine. 

But when he feels the wounding begin again, a line of fire across his chest, he has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. He wonders how long it will last this time. He wonders if the monster will think to feed him afterwards, to replace the life dripping down his stomach. And would that be breakfast, or dinner? He wonders if the sun has risen yet, or if it's already setting. 

He only has to wait. 

Another stripe crosses him, tracing from shoulder to belly, parting flesh. Damp warmth starts seeping into his t-shirt, and even with his jaw clamped shut, he feels wetness on his cheeks, more than blood. 

_Ban-chan_, he whispers, before he can help it. He wonders if this is his skin at all. This weak body doesn't feel like his own, even if the pain is his. Shouldn't he be stronger by now? He only has to wait, and even that's so hard. 

By the time the first brand burns his arm, he's already forgotten not to scream. By the fifth he's forgotten how to count them at all. _Ban-chan, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm not strong enough..._

* * *

_Ban-chan._

It's dark, until he opens his eyes. Ban lifts his head from the support of his hand, his cheek reddened where it was pressed into his palm. The words on the paper under his elbow slide back into focus, violet-tinged from the lenses of his glasses, though after so many years he doesn't notice that shading anymore. A quick glance at the clock on the wall ascertains that he didn't lose more than a minute or two. 

He thought he heard his name, but when he listens there's only the whir of the air conditioning, the clock's steady ticking, and the pervasive, almost inaudible hum of the florescent lights. He slams his hand down on the table to hear the thump of the impact, the rattle of the metal frame. One pen rolls off the notebook and clatters on the floor, and then everything's quiet again, so that the rasp of his clothes is loud when he leans down to pick it up. 

He thought he heard his name, but there's not even the ghost of a whisper. 

He's used to knowing, without a doubt, where Ginji is, what his partner is up to. Ginji is so easy to predict, so open, forever acting without forethought or hesitation. If Ginji isn't where he should be, then Ban can figure out where he's gotten to, pursue his partner from A to B to C to X--because Ginji doesn't take things linearly, but Ban knows that about him, too. Even Ginji's hopeless sense of direction has a certain pattern to it. 

It wasn't always like this, not when they first became retrievers. But that was when he was Midou Ban and his associate was Amano Ginji. They are the GetBackers now, and Ban accepts that Ginji can see places in him that even Ban himself can't make out, because it's a fair price for knowing his partner well enough to be able to follow him anywhere. 

_The S in GetBackers means we're not alone._

He doesn't know where the demon might have taken Ginji. Still in this world--Crawd confirmed what Ban assumed, that the monster isn't strong enough to draw a living being into its own realm. And Ginji is still alive. He knows that much, at least, even if there's only silence now. 

He isn't calling for Ban, he won't cry Ban's name, but Ban can still feel Ginji, like a spider feels vibrations in the spokes of its web, the faintest tremor that has no words, just pain and pain and pain. 

His eyes are open, falling from the stark, gray geometry of Crawd's files to the pages in front of him, but though he can see the letters clearly, they are nothing but abstract circles and lines. He blinks, and there is meaning again, as if the Roman alphabet had momentarily fallen out of his head and then back in. But by the time he finishes the page--Italian isn't one of his strengths--the clock has ticked an hour by, and he can't account for half those minutes. 

He doesn't bother looking up when the door opens, tracks Crawd's entrance by the slow progression of his steps, the limping drag of his soles on the tile. The old man stops beside his chair. "Midou-kun." 

"Yeah?" It better not be another offer for breakfast. Or supper. Or whatever the hell meal it should be now. He doesn't have time for that crap. 

"I have located further documentation of like encounters." 

"Ah." Ban does look up now, as the wrinkled hands set a flat box on the table. "Good. ...Thank you. Sorry for the trouble." 

"This is all that I have here," Crawd tells him. "I have requested more from colleagues, but I think that there being much of significant use to you has a small likelihood." 

"Yeah, well, I'll make do." Ban hunches back over the table, waits for the gnome to leave so he can concentrate again, but there's no footsteps. When he raises his head, the hazel eyes wavering behind the thick lenses are aimed at him. 

"I am not sure even what I have brought here will be of further help," Crawd says, deliberate and careful as ever, picking his way through the minefield of this foreign tongue. "These circumstances are not usual." 

"The hell they're not," Ban growls. It's not like meeting a demon is an everyday event. Even for them. 

Crawd slowly shakes his head. "Even given the unusualness of demons. I do not understand entirely this situation. Why it wants your friend." 

"He's a monster. If you'd seen him--it's a monster." 

"That is not doubted. But a monster with reason, and therefore purpose. Intent. There are some demons that will take a human for torture, only because they find pleasure in fear, gain sustenance from pain. But the demon as you have identified it, it is not one of those. And to lay that trap--its want for your friend is very great. I wonder why." 

"I don't care why it wants him." Whatever twisted reason the monster might have doesn't figure in. He's getting Ginji back before it can matter. Wherever the hell the demon is now. Wherever Ginji is. 

He doesn't have time for this. "If this is all you've got--" 

"Such a demon as this most often has a single goal." The wrinkled old bastard isn't paying any attention. "You must have realized this already, in your research." 

"Yeah, yeah, possession." 

"Not precisely." Crawd's dry rasp is suddenly sharp, the voice of a tutor chastising a lazy student--the same irritating tone Maria would take, on the occasions she decided to be his teacher. "To call such as this possession is to call a samurai's katana a kitchen knife. What the demon desires is a body, such that it may be wholly a real being in this world. Not merely to pull a puppet's strings, but to make human flesh its own." 

"'Perfect physical manifestation in the mortal realm'," Ban quotes. "I got it already." 

"Then you understand the peril here. A manifestation of a fiend this mighty has not been achieved in centuries on Earth. Were it to succeed--" 

"It would be bad. I got that, too." He finds it hard to care. If the demon were fully physical, more than a spirit, completely embodied on the mortal plane, it could be killed. He doesn't want this monster fleeing back to whatever hell it came from, when this is over; he wants its blood on his hands, wants to know it is dead with no chance of return. 

Besides, he's been taught some of this already, even if he's no occult expert. This kind of manifestation is complicated. "It'd take years anyway, even if the demon manages to get an appropriate host." 

"And only if the host survives the rituals required," Crawd confirms. "But with powerful enough a host it may achieve its perfection much the faster." 

It's not as if he hadn't thought of it before, but still he freezes. The silence is too loud; his voice is lost in it, barely makes it to his ears. "Ginji. You think that bastard demon wants Ginji for a host." 

He has read a little about those rituals in these records, remembers a little more, from the moldering tomes in his grandmother's libraries, and the woodcuts in Maria's shop. Years, it can take, to shape a human body to contain a demon's power, to smash a human soul to powder so that vessel can be emptied. 

He remembers the cult members, the hollowness in their faces. But it's only been a few days. And they were weak, already broken before the demon found them. Not his partner. 

He can't imagine seeing such a yawning emptiness in those brown eyes, something even worse than Raitei's annihilating light. But it doesn't matter. He's going to find him long before that. And Ginji's strong. 

"Ah, and this is what it is that I don't understand, Midou-kun." Crawd's unchanging calm burns. "That your friend is powerful, I realize. But you are as well, and it had you. It could not use you, however, for you would be inappropriate. I have seen enough of you, and spoken to Maria enough, to know. Your will is too strong, too contrary to the demon's. It would find no comfortable space in the crevices of your soul, however deep they go." 

"Ginji gave himself to it." _For me._ Somewhere too far inside for him to feel it, Ban knows Ginji is hurting still, hears the cry he isn't making, like an internal wound--no blood visible though it's bleeding, no pain though it's killing. "He gave himself over, of his own free will." 

"That would not be enough." Wrinkles fold around Crawd's dry lips as he frowns. "For many things, yes, for many terrible magics, but not for that. This is as fundamental a thing as the strength and weakness of his body. Not to be altered by simple choice. Midou-kun, he is your friend." He pronounces 'friend' with a momentary hesitation, as if unsure the word best suits. "You have known him for some time?" 

"A couple years," Ban says. A lifetime, but he was only born two years ago, he and Ginji both, walking out of Mugenjou's womb as newborns, together. 

"Is your friend, perhaps, evil?" 

"What's that?" 

"Think carefully, Midou-kun. Pass no judgment, for he is your friend, but consider it well. It may be a side of himself he does not show to you. But is there perhaps something in him that likes pain? That enjoys the witnessing of another's suffering, that revels in the power he has over those weaker? A selfishness, perhaps, not always conquered?" 

Ban almost could laugh. A perfect description in negative. "That's not him. That's the exact opposite of what Ginji is." 

Crawd still hesitates. "There are things I have heard. Rumors. Your friend, he is the thunder emperor. The tyrant of Under Shinjuku, the stories go..." 

"Not anymore," Ban says, too brusquely. That isn't Ginji, no matter how difficult some find it to understand. "Raitei--Ginji's stronger than him. Raitei's not real. And anyway...Raitei..." He can see that figure in his mind's eye, the emperor's golden luminescence, and his eyes, that shining, abstract gaze which razed even as it passed you over. A sharp shake of his head cancels that vision. "Raitei isn't evil. He destroys, but it's like a storm, an earthquake--there's not enough there for cruelty or sadism." Raitei has no cracks, nothing the demon could exploit; Raitei has no soul to be corrupted. Break Raitei, and Ginji is inside. And Ginji's will is greater than any demon's. 

"Then it makes no sense." Crawd shakes his bald head. "Without such a foothold, the demon could not infest itself in your friend. But I do not then understand its purpose, if you described this demon truly." 

"I told you everything," Ban growls, "everything I can remember, exactly how I remember it--why would I lie?!" This time when his hand slams down, the table collapses under the blow, the folding supports giving way with the screech of abused metal. The box slides off the listing tabletop, scattering papers in its fall. 

"Do not mistake me, Midou-kun," Crawd says, mildly, ignoring the yellowed pages fluttering down at his feet. "It is not lying that I am accusing or suspecting of you. But it is curious, that this demon would take such as your partner." 

"When I find them, I'll ask it." Distantly he thinks he should apologize, but those papers were probably useless to him anyway, and something in him balks at begging forgiveness from this shriveled gnome. 

_--Once you wouldn't bow even to an emperor, and you were wrong then._ It's amazing how much that internal voice sounds like the one he can't hear now, no matter how he tries. And it could be right, but he doesn't have time. But neither can he afford to alienate Crawd, not when he still might need the man's knowledge. "Sorry," he says, forcing politeness into his tone, and maybe Crawd's rheumy eyes won't see how thin that veneer is. "But if you don't know what's going on--it's more important to stop the demon now, and figure it out afterward." 

"Perhaps," Crawd murmurs. "Though without understanding what it intends, it may be difficult to prevent those intentions." 

He has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping back, and maybe that shouldn't have been so literal, but the taste of blood clears his head a little. He swallows that iron tang, says, "I know stopping the demon's important. But--" 

"I understand." Crawd looks up at Ban, head inclined like a curious bird's. The old man hasn't moved, maybe to avoid treading on the fallen papers, and his voice is calm as ever, cracked and desiccated as a desert plain, though quieter now. "The demon is a grave peril, but you have decided already what is most important. Or perhaps not a decision you have made at all?" 

"I'll do what I have to do," Ban says, but before he can turn aside Crawd takes his arm, gnarled talons around his forearm, a clasp dry and brittle as a sparrow's clutch. He could shrug it off but he might hurt the old gnome, so he holds himself still. 

"Midou-kun," and Ban wonders if the ancient man can feel the trembling of his muscles, the effort it's taking not to throw him off. There's no hesitation in his tone, though he knows Ban's power, better than most. "If this demon succeeds in grasping its desires, however it manages this, it will be a nightmare walking on this Earth such as not even your eye could conjure. You are her grandson, latest of the witch queen's line. There are responsibilities in your blood that you are not allowed to forget or forsake." The gnarled fingers tighten, digging into the flesh until it reddens. "I cannot and will not enforce; I only remind. For the sake of what is important to you." 

"I know," Ban rasps, and Crawd lets go, an instant before it's too much for him to hold back. 

A tooth-rattling buzz interrupts any answer the man might have made. Ban sifts through the fallen papers on the floor, finds his celphone and answers it. 

"Midou?" Shido's voice is strained, muffled. Not suited to modern technology, that tribal bastard. He called once before, to confirm that the thread spool was holding on. He might have tried again, but Ban had the phone off for a while, not wanting the distraction. 

"Yeah." 

"Dammit, where are you, snake bastard? Have you found what you needed to find?" 

He glances at Crawd, politely turned away to let him take the call. "Getting there." 

"Good. Makubex may have found him." 

"What?" 

"Makubex thinks he's found Ginji--or a way to locate him, anyway." 

"I got that, monkey trainer--how? Where?" You shouldn't shout in libraries, but Crawd says nothing, though the echoes off the flat white walls turn his questions to cacophony. 

"Come to the Honky Tonk, we'll tell you here." 

"There's no time for goddamn games--" 

"I'm not playing one," Shido growls, deadly serious for all his stubborn idiocy. "We don't have anything certain yet anyway. Makubex is hoping he will by tomorrow morning." 

Ban glances at the clock, realizes it doesn't matter; he has no idea whether it's AM or PM. "What's he doing? Where--" 

"We'll explain when you get here, Midou," Shido says. 

Before he can hang up, Ban asks, "How's the thread spool?" 

He might have imagined the change in Shido's tone. "He's doing all right--the doctors aren't as sure, but Juubei is." 

"Like he wouldn't be. He's one of you VOLTS bastards, isn't he?" 

"Midou..." It sounds like Shido will continue, but nothing more comes. 

"He's still alive," Ban says, not knowing why he does, except that he has to hear it. The opposite of a wish, kept secret so it will come true. This is already truth. Even in silence. "He's alive." 

"Get here, snake bastard," Shido tells him, and disconnects. 

He pockets the phone, and looks over to find Crawd watching him again. The thick lenses distort too much for him to read those hazel eyes, but he can feel their focus, like an unreachable itch. "What? --Sir?" 

"You are not quite as Maria said you were, Midou-kun." 

There are too many things he's not. "Sorry." 

"I did not mean it to require an apology." 

"I'll be going tomorrow morning," Ban tells him. "I'm going to find him. Them. Until then..." He looks down at the pages strewn at his feet, tries to find the anger again, that last bastion of his pride. His voice is too thin and raw without it. "I need to know as much more as you can give me." 

"Of course, Midou-kun," Crawd says, and slowly kneels to help him gather up the fallen papers. 

* * *

to be continued... 

Ow. I admit to feeling guilty about this chapter. Hurt/comfort is one thing, but...Ginji, I do love you...really... 

Apologies for the delays between chapters; this one doesn't write easy, and I want it to be as good as I can make it. Happy to know there are folks patient enough to stick with it! Thanks for the reviews, when I'm tempted to slow down, they're what keeps me going. Ah, and Katie, you asked about "Ghost Stories" - that was Teshimine Ban met, who isn't a literal ghost, but has entirely left the life he once had. Glad you've been enjoying my ficcies, I appreciate all the thoughtful comments! 


	6. VI

Shido looks over when the bell rings, but it's only a couple college-age girls, ducking into the shop to avoid the sudden downpour. He isn't the only one whose head snapped around at the sound of the opening door; even Paul lowered his newspaper, now bringing it back up again with an irritated quirk of his mouth. 

Natsumi swallows, puts on a smile like she's pinning on a badge and goes to ask if the customers would care for coffee. On the stool beside Shido, Uryuu hunches back over his cup, his arms folded on the counter in front of him. Uryuu is comfortable with the world outside Mugenjou, more so than Juubei, but he is in no mood for conversation now. His quick temper is banked, smoldering low and hot, and Shido can hear the grinding of his teeth. His patience is close to its end. 

Shido's own doesn't stretch much further. The Honky Tonk opened half an hour before, and still no sign of the snake bastard. He has to come eventually; he needs them. Besides, there's not much they can do now anyway. Makubex has yet to call back. 

Shido touches his vest pocket, the small, smooth celphone case. A gift from Madoka. She would be on the train now, in Kyoto in a few hours for tonight's concert. He only spoke with her once before she left, and not for long. Still enough time for her to realize something was wrong, but he didn't tell her what. And that hurt her a little, but the truth would hurt more, until they've put this right. All the same, he wishes she were here. 

"Shido-san? Uryuu-san? Would you like more coffee?" 

Uryuu's head comes up, turns toward Rena, and then he shakes it rapidly, fleeting panic in his eyes. "No, thanks," Shido says quickly. From here he can smell the contents of the pot in her hands. She must have been working on it for some time. It's not often that he has reason to curse his senses. 

The girls are sipping lattes, whispering and giggling to each other like a pair of pigeons. Shido doesn't need to look their way to know they're peeking in his direction, or more likely at Uryuu, with his form-fitting sleeveless shirt and the long blond hair. Silently he sighs, keeps his gaze fixed firmly on the bland pattern of the countertop. Like any predators, they can smell fear... 

When the bell over the door chimes, he doesn't look over, until he hears one of the girls squawk, "Hey, watch it--" 

The protest dies abruptly, and Shido looks up. 

Midou moves like a serpent, smooth and silent, and those girls couldn't move out of the way faster if he were a venomous snake. Midou ignores them. His dark hair is flattened with rain and his shirt clings to his shoulders, the black tank top underneath bleeding through the wet white cotton, but that bedraggled state hardly registers over the aura around him. Shido feels more than sees Uryuu tense beside him. 

"Ban-san," Natsumi begins, and stops. 

Behind his glasses, one of Paul's eyebrows raises. With one hand he reaches behind the counter, pulls out a towel and tosses it to Midou, who snatches it out of the air in a motion so fast the cloth snaps. For a second he just stares at it, then wipes the water off his face. "What do you have, monkey trainer?" he asks as he tousles his hair. 

His voice harsh, hoarse like a sick man's, and when he lowers the towel his face is gray and translucent as the rain against the dark streaks of his hair plastered across it. The shadows around his eyes just make their blue that much more shocking. "Dammit, Midou," Shido says without thinking, "what have you been doing to yourself?" 

Midou looks at him as if he's gone completely insane, slides onto the seat next to them and glares, all the heat of a pure blue flame. "You said you had something." 

"Makubex hasn't contacted us yet," Uryuu says. "We're expecting him to anytime." 

"What would you like for breakfast, Ban-san?" Natsumi asks. 

"Not hungry," Midou says, shortly, digging a cigarette out of his pocket and flicking his lighter over it. He takes long drag, closes his eyes in brief appreciation. "Shit, needed that. No smoking in the fucking archives, that's no way to work." 

He doesn't look any calmer for it, his fingers drumming an urgent tattoo on the countertop. Shido suspects he needs a lot more than nicotine. "What was the computer kid's brainstorm?" 

"What do you know about the...monster?" Shido counters, glancing at Natsumi and Rena, listening with wide-eyed concern. He told no one but Uryuu what Midou had said before about the demon; it's not something most people should understand, even if they could. 

"More than I did," Midou replies around the cigarette. 

"Enough?" 

"There's ways to fight it. But I need to find the bastard. What's this idea, if you weren't fucking with me?" 

"Makubex has been hacking the national power grid, finding out where electricity is going." Shido feels like a trained parrot, reciting back what the boy genius had told him while barely understanding half the words. Worse because he knows Makubex was simplifying it for him. Worse still because he's almost positive Midou can tell. "Wherever Ginji is, he affects it somehow, the power. If he doesn't do anything, there's no major changes, but Makubex thinks if he gives his computer enough data he'll be able to find a--" How had he put it? "--a statistically significant effect. As long as Ginji's been in the same place for a while." 

"That's good." Midou sounds grudgingly impressed. "The computer kid give you any idea how precisely he'll be able to pinpoint the location?" 

"He was guessing within the range of a kilometer, or a little less," Uryuu says. 

Midou has already burned through half the cigarette. He knocks the ash into the tray, exhales smoke. "Better than nothing." 

"If the monster's still around," Shido says, "that close, my friends should be able to give us a better idea of where. We'll just go where they won't." 

"'We'?" Midou begins, and is interrupted by Natsumi setting a plate down before him. 

"There you go, Ban-san." 

It's a Western breakfast, a fried egg and ham on a croissant, and she's pouring a glass of orange juice. Midou glowers at the plate. "I don't have any damn money." 

"And that's ever stopped you before?" Paul inquires, bringing the paper down just low enough to look at him over it. "Eat it." 

Midou hesitates, then grabs the sandwich. Shido, who has watched starving wolves bring down their first prey in a month, stares in amazement as it vanishes in ten impressive seconds. "Midou, have you eaten at all?" 

"No food allowed in the archives either," he mumbles around the final bite, swallows and downs the juice in two gulps. 

"You're no good to Ginji if you--" 

Midou sets the glass down, not hard, but the clink against the counter still sounds over the rattle of the door as the girls depart, though the rain hasn't stopped yet. "You're no good to Ginji," he hisses, "anymore than me, none of us are any damn good if we can't find him. Soon." He isn't looking at Shido; that blue glare is fixed on the empty plate. "It has to be soon." He hardly even sounds angry, as if he's forgetting how. 

"Midou," Shido begins, "the monster--" 

The unnatural warble of Uryuu's celphone clamors and Midou's head jerks up. Uryuu flips it out, answers, and Shido makes out Makubex's voice through the static--reception in Mugenjou is always limited--"I may have something. Is Midou--" 

Midou claims the phone before Uryuu has time to reply, or even open his mouth. "I'm here. What do you have?" 

In the second of static that follows, Shido almost thinks he can hear Midou's heart stutter, stop with his held breath. There's invisible motion in that silence between, like something is tearing itself free while his hope paralyzes him, and then Midou breathes again and masters it. 

"I may know where Ginji-san is," Makubex says.

* * *

Someone's there. Not the monster. Not evil, but cold, as cold as everyone says Midou Ban is. They don't know him. Not as Ginji does, and Ginji knows what the truly cold-blooded are well enough not to be fooled by Ban-chan's pretenses. 

The monster isn't here now, but he'll be back soon, and Ginji shivers. He doesn't open his eyes; if he did, he wouldn't be able to see who is here with him. "Please, just go away," he whispers. 

I can't. 

_Just leave. I don't want you here._

You need me. 

_I'm fine. I'm fine._ He's been telling himself that so many times that for a while the words lost all meaning, but by now he's gone back to believing it. _Ban-chan is coming. I'm fine._

Maybe he will. Until then-- 

_I don't need you._

He's hurting you. 

Anger should be hot. It burns that much deeper when it's so freezing cold. "I'm fine," Ginji mouths. 

"He's hurting me," his own voice answers. This is intolerable. This is why I exist. 

_I don't need you._

Let me. 

_Go away!_

Ban-chan is coming. But Ban-chan isn't here yet. And it does hurt. He's healing, but that's almost as agonizing as when the monster injured him. And the monster will be coming back. Maybe before Ban does. 

Ban will be angry with him. But it hurts so much. 

Let me. 

Alone in the locked cell, curled on the cement floor, Ginji sighs, and falls unconscious into that rigid, protective embrace. 

And Raitei opens eyes as clear and chill as agate.

* * *

to be continued... 

This chapter is dedicated to Sanada and Talon, for guilting me into it in the most delightful way. And my greatest thanks to everyone who's reviewed. There's little I can say about the delay but I'm sorry, and my gratitude to everyone who's had the patience to stick with it. The end is still a ways to come, but come it will - keep the faith! 


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